published in: European Journal of Population, 2021, 37, 959 - 995
This paper uses linked Swiss administrative and survey data to examine the relationship between educational mismatch in the labour market and emigration decisions, carrying out the analysis for both Swiss native and previous immigrant workers. In turn, migrants' decisions separate returning home from onward migration to a third country. We find that undereducation is positively associated with the probability of emigration and return to the country of origin. In contrast, the reverse relationship is found between overeducation and emigration, especially among non-European immigrant workers. According to the predictions of the traditional model of migration, based on self-selection, migrants returning home are positively selected relative to migrants emigrating to other countries. We also find that immigrants from a country outside the EU27/EFTA have little incentive to return home and generally accept jobs for which they are mismatched in Switzerland. These results highlight the relevance to understand emigration behaviours in relation to the type of migrant that is most integrated, and productive, in the Swiss market, hence enabling better migration and domestic labour market policy design.
We use cookies to provide you with an optimal website experience. This includes cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site as well as cookies that are only used for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, you may not be able to use all of the site's functions.
Cookie settings
These necessary cookies are required to activate the core functionality of the website. An opt-out from these technologies is not available.
In order to further improve our offer and our website, we collect anonymous data for statistics and analyses. With the help of these cookies we can, for example, determine the number of visitors and the effect of certain pages on our website and optimize our content.